THE CRIMEA
Soon after his return to England Sir Colin Campbell vacated the
command of the Ninety-Eighth and went on half-pay. He had earned a
modest competence, and after those long years of campaigning abroad
he considered himself at the age of sixty-one entitled to enjoy
peaceful repose at home for the rest of his life. But this was not to
be; there was still before him much arduous and active service in the
field before he went to his final rest.
Kinglake in his _War in the Crimea_ pays Colin Campbell a fine
tribute--not less fine, however, than deserved; a passage from which
may fittingly be inserted here:--
"After serving with all this glory for some forty-five years, he
returned to England; but between the Queen and him stood a dense
crowd of families extending further than the eye could reach, and
armed with strange precedents which made it out to be right that
people who had seen no service should be invested with high command,
and that Sir Colin Campbell should be only a colonel. Yet he was of
so fine a nature that, although he did not always avoid great bursts
of anger, there was no ignoble bitterness in his sense of wrong.
He awaited the time when perhaps he might have high command, and be
able to serve his country in a sphere proportioned to his strength.
His friends, however, were angry for his sake; and along with their
strong devotion to him, there was bred a fierce hatred of a system of
military dispensation which could keep in the background a man thus
tried and thus known."
The time was soon to come when such a man as Colin Campbell could
no longer be kept in the background. England and France had formed
an alliance in defence of Turkey against Russia, and in the end of
March, 1854, war was actually declared. English troops had already
been despatched to the East; Lord Raglan had been appointed to the
command of the expeditionary force, and Sir Colin Campbell had been
nominated to a brigade command. He embarked for the East on the 3rd
of April accompanied by Major Sterling his brigade-major and Captain
Shadwell his aide-de-camp. On the 23rd he reached Constantinople,
where on the arrival of Lord Raglan a few days later he was
appointed to the Highland Brigade consisting of the Forty-Second,
Seventy-Ninth, and Ninety-Third regiments. That brigade and the
Guards formed the First Division, of which the Duke of Cambridge had
the command. The Highland Brigade was completed in the second week of
June by the arrival of the Forty-Second.
Although himself a Highlander, it had never until now fallen to the
lot of Colin Campbell to command Highlanders. But he understood
the Highland nature, which has its marked peculiarities; and he
speedily won the respect and goodwill of the fine soldiers whom he
was privileged to command. A thoroughly good understanding soon
grew up between him and them; not only was he commanding officer of
the brigade; he was also regarded as somewhat in the character of
the chief of a clan. He was fortunate in finding in the commanding
officer of the Forty-Second, the son of his old chief Sir John
Cameron of the Ninth, and not less fortunate in being able to
avail himself of Colonel Cameron's long experience at the head of
a Highland regiment in many important details connected with the
internal management and economy of the brigade.
In accordance with the scheme of operations agreed upon by the
English and French commanders in conference with Omar Pasha at Varna,
the allied armies were gradually concentrated about that place and
inland therefrom in support of the Turkish army at Schumla. The
position at Varna was found unhealthy and the Duke of Cambridge
marched his division on to the plateau of Aladyn, where it was
visited by Omar Pasha who expressed his great admiration of the
magnificent appearance of the Guards and Highlanders paraded for
his inspection. But tidings arrived that the Russians had raised
the siege of Silistria and recrossed the Danube, and presently the
troops of the Tsar withdrew altogether from the Principalities. The
object for which the allied armies had been moved into Bulgaria no
longer existed; and on July 18th the resolution was taken to make a
descent on the Crimea and assail Sevastopol. The preparations for
this daring enterprise were at length completed, and the Highland
Brigade embarked at Varna on August 29th. Sir Colin sailed in the
steam-transport _Emu_. He was now at length a Major-General after a
service of forty-six years and one month; the date of the promotion
was July 10th. "This rank," he remarks philosophically, "has arrived
at a period of life when the small additional income which it carries
with it is the only circumstance connected with the promotion in
which I take any interest."
The voyage across the Black Sea, the landing on Crimean soil, and the
advance to the Alma, are familiar history to every reader. Campbell
had given up his journal before the landing, and all that he wrote
of his personal experiences in the battle of the Alma is contained
in two letters, one to his sister, the other to his friend Colonel
Eyre. The former is a mere sketch, alluding to the fine courage
exhibited by his young Highlanders and to the circumstance, mentioned
with characteristic modesty, that "he was supposed to have made a
disposition and an attack of importance which led to results of
considerable advantage." He thus concludes, "I lost my best horse--a
noble animal. He was first shot in the hip the ball passing through
my sabretasche, and the second ball went right through his body
passing through the heart. He sank at once, and Shadwell kindly lent
me his horse which I immediately mounted."
The letter to Colonel Eyre is more detailed. "When," he writes,
"the Light Division was ordered to advance, we (the First Division)
followed in close support. My brigade was on the left of the Guards.
On the face of the slope immediately in front of the Light Division,
the enemy had made a large redoubt protected on each side by
artillery on the heights above and on either side, covered on flanks
and front by a direct as well as an enfilading fire. This artillery
was supported by numerous large masses of troops near their guns,
and also by other large masses in rear on the inward slopes of the
heights. These heights extended far to the enemy's right, with a
bare slope without bush or tree to afford cover down to the bank of
the river, on which we had to form and advance to the attack after
crossing.
"The vineyards and garden enclosures in the narrow valley through
which the river runs, completely broke the formation of the troops.
They crossed necessarily in a disorderly manner; but the left
bank being high, I was able to collect my right regiment (the
Forty-Second) under its cover. On gaining the top of the bank I
observed a large portion of the Light Division advancing to attack
the redoubt, which was a good deal to the right of my right regiment.
I hastened its formation, the other two regiments being still
struggling through the difficult bottom from which I had emerged....
The Forty-Second continued its advance, followed, as I had previously
ordered, by the two other regiments (Ninety-Third and Seventy-Ninth)
in _échelon_, forming in that order as they gained in succession the
summit of the left bank of the Alma. On gaining the ascent we found
the enemy who had withdrawn from the redoubt, attempting to form on
two large masses of troops advancing over the plateau to meet the
attack of the Forty-Second. The men were too much blown to charge,
so they opened fire while advancing in line, an operation in which
I had practised them, and they drove before them in confusion with
cheers and a terrible slaughter both masses and the fugitives from
the redoubt.
"Before reaching the inner crest of the heights, another heavy
mass of troops came forward against the Forty-Second, and this was
disposed of in the same manner as the two first we encountered. I
halted the regiment on the inner crest of the heights, still firing
and killing more of the enemy as they were descending the inner
slope, when two large bodies came down from the right of the enemy's
position direct on the left flank of the Forty-Second. Just at this
moment the Ninety-Third showed itself coming over the table-land, and
attacked these bodies, which did not yield readily. The Ninety-Third,
which I had great difficulty in restraining from following the
enemy, had only time to inflict great loss, when two bodies of
fresh infantry with some cavalry, came boldly forward against the
left flank of the Ninety-Third, whereupon the Seventy-Ninth made
its appearance over the hill, and went at these troops with cheers,
causing them great loss and forcing them away in great confusion. The
Guards during these operations were away to my right, quite removed
from the scene of this fight which I have described. It was a fight
of the Highland Brigade.
"Lord Raglan came up afterwards and sent for me. When I approached
him I observed his eyes to fill and his lips and countenance to
quiver. He gave me a cordial shake of the hand, but he could not
speak. The men cheered very much. I told them I was going on to ask
of the Commander-in-Chief a great favour,--that he would permit me
to have the honour of wearing the Highland bonnet during the rest of
the campaign, which pleased them very greatly, and so ended my part
in the fight of the 20th inst.... My men behaved nobly. I never saw
troops march to battle with greater _sang froid_ and order than those
three Highland regiments.... I write on the ground. I have neither
stool to sit on nor bed to lie on. I am in capital health, for which
I have to be very thankful. Cholera is rife among us, and carrying
off many fine fellows of all ranks!"
This description is not in Kinglake's style, but in its soldierly
curtness it may strike the reader as having the valuable attribute of
greater directness and lucidity, and it was written by the man who
not only controlled every movement on his own side of the fight on
the left of the great redoubt, but also watched with cool, keen eyes
every evolution of his adversaries. He had need to be on the alert,
if ever man had; for he had to his hand but three battalions, and he
had in his front no fewer than twelve Russian battalions each one of
which was numerically stronger than any one of his three. Nor were
his opponents raw militia or reserve battalions such as confronted
Prince Napoleon's division. The Russian regiments on the British
side of the great road, the Vladimir, Sousdal, Kazan, and Ouglitz,
constituted the Sixteenth Division, the division _d'élite_ of the
Tsar's troops of the line; that same division which three and twenty
years later won for Skobeleff his electrical successes. It was twelve
battalions of this historical division against whose massive columns
Colin Campbell led his brigade in the old two-deep British line
formation with the result he has told in his quiet sober manner. No
wonder that Lord Raglan's "eyes filled and his lips and countenance
quivered" as, too much moved to speak, he shook the hand of the
commander of the Highland Brigade.
"So ended my part in the fight of the 20th inst.," writes Sir Colin
in the soldierly and modest narrative of his share in the victory
which he sent home to his friend Eyre. That narrative, lucid
though it is, is also almost provokingly curt. Fortunately, thanks
chiefly to the industry of Kinglake, there exists the material for
supplementing and amplifying it. According to that writer during the
last of the halts on the march on the morning of the Alma, while the
men were lying down in the sunshine, Sir Colin, the provident soldier
of experience, quietly remarked to one of his officers, "This will be
a good time for the men to get loose half of their cartridges;" and
Kinglake adds that, "when the command travelled along the ranks of
the Highlanders, it lit up the faces of the men one after another,
assuring them that now at length, and after long experience, they
indeed would go into action."
It does not appear that Colin Campbell ever made any reference to
an incident which Kinglake mentions. The brigade of Guards before
crossing the river was exposed, it seems, to a fire of artillery,
which, as is not uncommon with that arm, struck down some men. There
was a tendency to hesitation, when, according to Kinglake, some
weak-kneed brother in the shape of an officer of "obscure rank" had
the pusillanimity or the impertinence to exclaim, "The brigade of
Guards will be destroyed; ought it not to fall back?" "When Sir Colin
Campbell heard this saying," says Kinglake in his high-strung manner,
"his blood rose so high that the answer he gave--impassioned and
far-resounding--was of a quality to govern events:--'It is better,
sir, that every man of Her Majesty's Guards should lie dead on the
field than that they should turn their backs upon the enemy!' Doubts
and questionings ceased. The division marched forward."
Mr. Kinglake owns that he did not himself hear the words; and it is
permissible, therefore, to doubt whether they were uttered. They
certainly are not in Colin Campbell's manner. It would have been
more like him to express himself in strong and frank vernacular to,
or of the officer of "obscure rank" who had evinced a propensity for
"falling back." No doubt he was with the Duke of Cambridge in front
of the left of the Coldstreams when the Guards were encountering
obstacles among the vineyards before reaching the river. In that
position the Highland Brigade would be under his eye. Sir Colin
Campbell, a soldier inured to war, certainly was of great service
on the advance to the brigade of Guards, scarcely a man of which
had ever seen a shot fired in anger. He remained near the Duke of
Cambridge until the Guards had crossed the river; and when the
Light Division was retreating in disorder on the brigade of Guards
he advised His Royal Highness to move the latter somewhat to the
left, to avoid the dislocation of his line which otherwise would be
occasioned by the rush of fugitives. After the momentary confusion
caused by the retreat of the Light Division behind the advancing
Guards to reform, the Duke thought it would be well to make a short
halt for the purpose of dressing his line, but Sir Colin earnestly
desired him to make no such delay but to press forward on the enemy
with the initial impulse, and the advice was followed with triumphant
result.
It fell to Sir Colin Campbell and his Highland Brigade to protect the
left flank of the British army, with three battalions to vanquish
and put to flight eight Russian battalions, and to compel the
retreat of four more. The arena of this exploit was the slopes and
hollows of the Kourganè _terrain_ to the Russian right of the great
redoubt from which the British Light Division had been forced to
recoil with heavy loss. On the extreme Russian right flank and rear
stood three thousand horsemen, and to protect his own left Campbell
had given the order to the Seventy-Ninth, the left regiment of his
brigade, to go into column. But a little later, when he had ridden
forward and so gained a wider scope of view, it became apparent to
his experienced eye that he need fear nothing from the stolid array
of Russian cavalry on his flank. He therefore recalled his order to
the Seventy-Ninth and allowed it to go forward in line. His brigade
after crossing the Alma fell into direct _échelon_ of regiments, the
Forty-Second on the right being the leading regiment of the three,
the Ninety-Third in the centre, and the Seventy-Ninth on the left.
Just before the Guards began their advance on the redoubt which
the right Vladimir column was still holding, Sir Colin Campbell
was in his saddle in front of the left of the Coldstreams talking
occasionally with the Duke of Cambridge. When the Guards began
their advance Sir Colin also proceeded to act. He discerned that
by swiftly moving a battalion up to the crest in front of him, he
would be on the flank of the position about the great redoubt where
the right Vladimir column was confronting the Guards. This attitude
of his would probably compel the retirement of the Vladimirs; if it
did not, by wheeling to his right he would strike the flank of the
Russian column while the Guards were assailing its front. He had the
weapon wherewith to effect this stroke ready to his hand in the
Forty-Second, which having crossed the river now stood ranged in line.
Before his brigade had moved from column into line Campbell had
spoken a few straightforward soldierly words to his men, the gist
of which has been commemorated. "Now, men," said he, "you are going
into action. Remember this: whoever is wounded--no matter what his
rank--must lie where he falls till the bandsmen come to attend to
him. No soldiers must go carrying off wounded comrades. If any man
does such a thing his name shall be stuck up in his parish church.
The army will be watching you; make me proud of the Highland
Brigade!" And now, when the time had come for action and that rugged
slope had to be surmounted, he rode to the head of the "Black Watch"
and gave to the regiment the command "Forward, Forty-Second!"
He himself with his staff rode rapidly in advance up to the crest.
In his immediate front there lay before him a broad and rather deep
depression on the further side of which there faced him the right
Kazan column of two battalions, on the left of which was reforming
the right Vladimir column whose retreat from the vicinity of the
redoubt had been compelled by the pressure of the Guards on front and
flank. Both columns had suffered considerably; but assuming their
previous losses to have been one-third of their original strength,
they[2] still numbered three thousand against the eight hundred and
thirty of the Forty-Second. And when Campbell looked to his left,
he saw on the neck bounding the left of the hollow another and a
heavier column consisting of two perfectly fresh battalions of the
Sousdal regiment. This last column, however, was stationary, and
notwithstanding that the men were out of breath Sir Colin sent the
Forty-Second, firing as it advanced, straight across the hollow
against the Kazan and Vladimir columns. The regiment had not gone
many paces when it was seen that the left Sousdal column had left the
neck and was marching direct on the left flank of the Forty-Second.
Campbell immediately halted the regiment and was about to throw
back its left wing to deal with the Sousdal advance, when glancing
over his left shoulder he saw that the Ninety-Third, his centre
battalion, had reached the crest. In its eagerness its formation had
become disturbed. Campbell rode to its front, halted and reformed it
under fire, and then led it forward against the flank of the Sousdal
column. The Forty-Second meanwhile had resumed its advance against
the Vladimir and Kazan columns.
Before the onslaughts of the two Scottish regiments the Russian
columns were staggering, and their officers had extreme difficulty
in compelling their men to retain their formation, when from the
upper ground on the left was seen moving down yet another Russian
column,--the right Sousdal column--and heading straight for the flank
of the Ninety-Third. It was taken in the flagrant offence of daring
to march across the front of a battalion advancing in line. At that
instant the Seventy-Ninth came bounding forward; after a moment's
halt to dress their ranks, the Cameron men sprang at the flank of the
Sousdal column and shattered it by the fierce fire poured into its
huddled ranks. And now, the left Sousdal column almost simultaneously
discomfited by the Ninety-Third, and the Kazan and Vladimir columns
which the "Black Watch" had assailed being in full retreat, the hill
spurs and hollows became thronged by the disordered masses of the
enemy. Kinglake brilliantly pictures the culmination of the triumph
of the Highlanders:--"Knowing their hearts, and deeming that the
time was one when the voice of his people might fitly enough be
heard, the Chief touched or half-lifted his hat in the way of a man
assenting. Then along the Kourganè slopes and thence west almost home
to the Causeway, the hillsides were made to resound with that joyous
assuring cry which is the natural utterance of a northern people
so long as it is warlike and free." It is curious that nowhere in
his vivid description of the part taken by the Highland Brigade in
the achievement of the victory of the Alma, does Kinglake make any
mention of the bagpipes. It is certain that they were in full blast
during the advance of the regiments and throughout the fighting, and
their shrill strains must have astonished the Russians not less than
did the waving tartans and nodding plumes of the Highlanders.
Sir Colin, careful ever in the midst of victory, halted his brigade
on the ground it had already won, for his supports were yet distant;
and mindful of his situation as the guardian of the left of the army,
he showed a front to the south-east as well as to the east. The great
Ouglitz column, four thousand strong and still untouched, remained
over against the halted British brigade. Chafing at the defeat of
its comrades, it moved down from its height, striving to hinder
their retreat and force them back into action. But the Ouglitz
column itself had in its turn to withdraw from under the fire of the
Highland Brigade, and to accept the less adventurous task of covering
the retreat of its vanquished fellow-columns.
After the flank march to the south side of Sevastopol the allied
forces took possession of the Chersonese upland, and the Highland
Brigade, leaving the Ninety-Third at Balaclava, encamped with the
Guards in rear of the Light Division. Lord Raglan was solicitous
regarding the port of Balaclava which had become the British base of
operations, and measures had already been set on foot to protect it
by a series of batteries and field-works. On the 16th of October Sir
Colin was assigned by the Commander-in-Chief to the command of the
troops and defences covering the port, and he promptly undertook the
important and responsible duty of protecting the rear of the army.
The inner defences of Balaclava consisted of a series of batteries
connected by a continuous trench extending from the sea eastward of
the port round the landward face of the heights to the chapel of
St. Elias near the road from Balaclava to the Traktir bridge. This
line of batteries and trench was held by some twelve hundred marines
landed from the fleet with a weak detachment of marine artillery.
About Kadikoi, on the low ground at the head of the gorge leading
down to Balaclava, were several batteries, and in front of that
village was the camp of the Ninety-Third Highlanders with Barker's
field-battery on its flank. The exterior line of defence consisted
of a chain of redoubts on the low ridge dividing the southern or
inner plain from the exterior or northern valley, along which on
the 25th of October the British light cavalry brigade was to make
its memorable charge. Those redoubts, which were still unfinished
on the day of the battle, were very weak. They were garrisoned by
Turks, and their armament consisted of but nine guns in all. It was
to the assault of those poor redoubts that Liprandi's field-army,
some twenty-four thousand strong, advanced across the Tchernaya at
daybreak of the 25th. Doubtless the Russian general had ulterior
designs, comprising the discomfiture of Campbell's Highlanders and an
attempt against Balaclava.
Riding with Lord Lucan in the early morning of the day of Balaclava,
Sir Colin Campbell witnessed the advance of the Russian columns, and
it was by his advice that the cavalry chief refrained from taking the
offensive. One after another of the four easternmost redoubts fell
into Russian possession. The Turks garrisoning No. 1 made a gallant
and stubborn defence; but they were only six hundred against eleven
battalions with thirty guns, and after losing one-fourth of their
number they fled towards Balaclava followed by the garrisons of the
other redoubts. The Turks rallied for a time on either flank of the
Ninety-Third, which stood drawn up in line in front of the knoll
before Kadikoi. Sir Colin's active share in the further proceedings
of the day was soon over. He sums it up in a few sentences of his
official report:--"When the enemy had taken possession of the
redoubts, their artillery advanced with a mass of cavalry and
their guns ranged. The Ninety-Third Highlanders, with one hundred
invalids under Colonel Daveney, occupied, very inefficiently from
the smallness of their numbers, the slightly rising ground in front
of No. 4 battery. As I found that round shot and shell began to
cause casualties among the Ninety-Third and the Turkish battalions on
their right and left flanks, I made them retire a few paces behind
the crest of the hillock. During this period our batteries on the
heights manned by the Royal and Marine artillerymen made excellent
practice on the enemy's cavalry which came over the hill in our
front. One body of that cavalry, amounting to about four hundred,
turned to their left, separating themselves from those who attacked
Lord Lucan's division, and charged the Ninety-Third, who immediately
advanced to the crest of the hill on which they stood and opened
their fire, forcing the Russian cavalry to turn to their left; after
which the latter made an attempt to turn the right flank of the
Ninety-Third on observing the flight of the Turks who had been posted
there. Upon this the grenadiers of the Ninety-Third under Captain
Ross were wheeled up to their right and fired upon the enemy, and by
this manœuvre entirely discomfited them."
The erratic charge upon him of four Russian squadrons gave the old
infantry commander very little concern. That approach he confronted
calmly in line,--the "thin red streak tipped with a line of steel"
which a brilliant phrase-maker has made historical. When it was a
subject of remark in his presence that the Ninety-Third never altered
its formation to receive the Russian cavalry in a period when the
square was the approved formation in which to meet an onslaught of
horse, he said in his genial way, "No--I did not think it worth while
to form them even four deep." His concern was in the fact that his
regiment was the only infantry body on the British side in the field,
while the Russian chief was the master of many battalions. Those six
companies of kilted men, with a few guns, were the sole protection
of the port the possession of which alone enabled the British army
to remain in the Crimea. It was in the consciousness of a momentous
responsibility that, as he rode along the face of his noble regiment,
he judged it wise to impart to the men the gravity of the occasion.
"Remember," said he, "there is no retreat from here, men! You must
die where you stand!" The cheery answer must have gone to his
heart--"Aye, aye, Sir Colin; we'll do that!"
There were a great many young soldiers in the ranks of the
Ninety-Third, and it needed to be controlled with a firm hand. As
the Russian squadron approached, the impetuous youngsters of the
regiment, stirred by their northern blood, evinced a propensity to
break ranks and rush forward to meet the Muscovite sabres with the
British bayonet; but, in the words of Kinglake, "In a moment Sir
Colin was heard shouting fiercely, 'Ninety-Third, Ninety-Third! damn
all that eagerness!'" and the angry voice of the old soldier quickly
steadied the line.
The main mass of the Russian cavalry, from which the four squadrons
which were repulsed by the Ninety-Third had detached themselves, rode
up the north valley until it was abreast of the abandoned redoubt
No. 4, when it inclined to its left, crossed the low ridge and moved
down the gentle hither slope falling into the inner valley. It was
there met by the charge of the British heavy cavalry brigade; and
during the short but warm encounter Barker's battery, at Sir Colin's
order, opened fire with round shot on the Russian centre and rear.
The Ninety-Third watched with keen rapture their fellow-countrymen
of the Scots Greys slashing their way through the graycoated mass of
Russian troopers; and when the enemy's column wavered, broke, and
then fled in disorder, Scarlett's victorious troopers were greeted
from afar by the ringing cheers of the delighted Highlanders. When
the brigade had completed its triumph, Sir Colin Campbell came
galloping up to offer his congratulations. As he approached the Greys
he uncovered and spoke to the regiment. "Greys! gallant Greys!" he
exclaimed, "I am sixty-one years old, and if I were young again I
should be proud to be in your ranks." Sir Colin does not appear to
have seen anything of the subsequent charge made by Cardigan at the
head of the light cavalry brigade, which was made down the north or
outer valley, on the further side of the ridge on the crest of which
were the abandoned redoubts.
In the afternoon the troops which had moved down from the plateau
in the morning returned to their camps, but the Forty-Second and
Seventy-Ninth passed again under the command of their own brigade
commander. The contiguity of the enemy's forces in such great
strength made very welcome the accession to Sir Colin's scanty
means of defence. During this critical night the Forty-Second and
Seventy-Ninth held the ground between the Ninety-Third camp and the
foot of the Marine heights, and Vinoy's French brigade was sent to
the high ground overlooking the Kadikoi gorge to strengthen Sir Colin
in the defence of his position. He was so apprehensive of a night
attack that he placed the Ninety-Third in No. 4 battery, half the
men posted behind the parapet, the other half lying down with their
loaded rifles by their sides. He himself was on the alert throughout
the night, moving about among the men; his anxiety was great, for
he was not aware of the distaste of the Russians for night attacks.
Amidst his cares it was pleasant to receive and promulgate the
following general order complimenting himself and the Ninety-Third
on their conduct on the 25th: "The Commander of the forces feels
deeply indebted to Major-General Sir Colin Campbell for his able and
persevering exertions in the action of the 25th; and he has great
pleasure in publishing to the army the brilliant manner in which
the Ninety-Third Highlanders under his able directions repulsed the
enemy's cavalry."
For weeks, while the Russians were so close, Sir Colin never relaxed
his activity and vigilance. Not for an hour did he leave the
position. He was awake and about all night and the little sleep he
took was by snatches in the daytime. By constant industry and with
many devices he laboured to strengthen and improve his defences. The
first relief from toil and anxiety which he experienced was when on
December 5th the Russian field-army withdrew across the Tchernaya
to Tchorgoum. "Then," writes Shadwell, "that night for the first
time Sir Colin lay down with his clothes off in the house; but even
with a roof over his head he was restless; and such was the tension
of his nervous system from the continuous strain of long weeks of
anxious watching, that an officer who shared his room was startled
in the middle of the night by his chief jumping up and shouting,
'Stand to your arms!'" Towards the end of December the Seventy-First
Highlanders arrived and joined his command, and on Christmas Day he
received the notification of his appointment to the colonelcy of the
Sixty-Seventh regiment.
Towards the end of January, 1855, Sir Colin was able to have nearly
all his troops hutted. Before the end of the first week in February
the whole brigade was comfortably in huts; and he was able to spare
daily large fatigue-parties for the carriage of shot and shell to
the front. An experience he underwent on February 20th illustrates
the risks and vicissitudes attending an attempt to effect a combined
movement in the darkness of a winter night. Sir Colin had received
instructions to support, with four infantry regiments and a force
of artillery and cavalry, the movement of a considerable body of
French troops under General Bosquet, with the object of surprising
the Russian troops on the right bank of the Tchernaya behind the
Traktir bridge. It was a bitter night of snow and frost, but the
English details duly rendezvoused and marched to the named point
without seeing anything of Bosquet's people. Sir Colin covered the
bridge and left bank with a couple of battalions, holding the rest
in reserve; his troops were in position before daybreak. He was not
entitled to take the offensive save in combination with the French,
of whom there was no appearance. The Russians as day broke were seen
taking up positions, but they remained on the defensive. Sir Colin
stood fast until 8.30 A.M. expecting the arrival of Bosquet; then,
concluding that the expedition had been countermanded, he prepared to
return. His conjecture was correct; a countermand had been despatched
which had duly reached Bosquet, but the messenger charged with the
countermand for Campbell had lost his way and did not arrive. As the
British force was about retiring the French general Vinoy appeared
with his brigade. He had learnt at daybreak that no countermand had
reached Kadikoi, whereupon the gallant Frenchman, unsolicited and
on his own responsibility, hurried with his brigade to support his
English comrade who, isolated as he was and with an overwhelmingly
strong force in his front, might well have found himself in
difficulties. Vinoy's kindly and helpful action was heartily
appreciated by Sir Colin's soldiers.
In the end of February the brigade of Guards came down to Balaclava
from the front, and Sir Colin, who had succeeded the Duke of
Cambridge in the command of the First Division, now had the whole
of it under him. By steadfast labour and attention he had very
materially increased and developed the strength and scope of the
Balaclava lines. When he contrasted the existing with the early state
of the position, he frankly owned that for a great part of the time
he "had held the lines by sheer impudence." In May he experienced
a great mortification in not being allowed to accompany, on the
expedition to Kertch, his Highland Brigade and other details of his
original Balaclava command. Lord Raglan tried to pay him a compliment
by explaining that he could not be spared from the position which he
had guarded so long and so well; but Campbell felt the disappointment
deeply, nor was it mitigated when a newly-arrived Highland regiment
with detachments for the Brigade was sent off to join the Kertch
expedition. On its return the First Division, now again reunited
under his command, moved up to the front in the middle of June. It
was in reserve and not engaged in the unsuccessful assault on the
Redan on June 18th; and thenceforth for a time it took its regular
term of duty in the trenches. But Sir Colin was soon to undergo
another disappointment. He had been cherishing the hope that the
division, which was in full efficacy and high _morale_, would take
a prominent part in the final assault on Sevastopol, and he had
prepared a scheme of operations in case the conduct of the assault
should be committed to him. But he had now to endure the disruption
of his command. The Highland Brigade was withdrawn from the First
Division and formed into a separate division, the complement of which
was to be made up by the addition of other Scottish regiments. The
nucleus of the new Highland Division, consisting of the Forty-Second,
Seventy-Second, Seventy-Ninth, and Ninety-Third regiments, was sent
down to Kamara in support of the Sardinians, and remained there until
September when it returned to the front to serve as a reserve to the
troops taking part in the final assault. The British assault on the
Redan unfortunately failed, and Sir Colin took up the defence of the
trenches with his Highland regiments on the withdrawal of the troops
employed in the abortive affair. The same evening he was desired
by the Commander-in-Chief to hold himself in readiness to make a
renewed assault on the Redan with his Highlanders on the following
day. But during the night the Russians withdrew to the north side. A
patrol of the Ninety-Third entered the Redan at midnight and found it
abandoned. The long siege was over, and Sevastopol had fallen at last.
Sir Colin Campbell was a man who could admire a brave and skilful
enemy. He wrote: "The Russians, it must be acknowledged, made a noble
defence; and surely never was a retreat from an untenable position
so wonderfully well-managed, carried out as it was in the face of a
powerful enemy and without any loss whatever, while the withdrawal
of the troops from their defences through the town and across a
single bridge was being effected. I cannot conceive anything more
perfect and complete in every detail than the manner in which they
accomplished the withdrawal from Sevastopol and the transport of
their troops across the harbour.... While they fired all the other
magazines along the line of their defences, they did not touch those
in the Great Redan--an act of great humanity, for the whole of our
wounded who remained in the ditch and our trenches would have been
destroyed. Indeed, before the Russians left the Redan some of our
wounded were carefully dressed by them and placed in safety from the
fire of our own shells."
Campbell's position in the Crimea had become exceedingly
uncomfortable. Before the final assault General Simpson had informed
him that he was desired by Lord Panmure to offer him the Malta
command, an offer which appeared an indirect attempt to remove
him from the army. Later he became by virtue of seniority second
in command, and it was known that Simpson was about to vacate the
chief command. The tone of the press was emphatic in favour of the
employment of a younger man in that position, and the Government
followed the lead of the journals. Sir Colin could not but realise
that his presence with the army in the Crimea was no longer desired
by the War Minister. Having seen the Highland Division comfortably
hutted for the winter during which no active operations in the
field would be possible, he took farewell of his troops and sailed
for England on November 3rd. Three days later was announced Sir
William Codrington's nomination to the chief command; and with
that despatch came a letter from Lord Panmure to Sir Colin, the
contents of which he did not learn until he visited his lordship on
his arrival in London on November 17th. This letter, in Campbell's
own words, "contained an appeal to my patriotism of the strongest
nature, to induce me to accept a command under Codrington." To his
old friend Lord Hardinge, now Commander-in-Chief, Campbell frankly
said that he had come home to tender his resignation. "But," he
added, "if her Majesty should ask me to place myself under a junior
officer, I could not resist any request of hers." He was promptly
commanded to Windsor; and, to quote General Shadwell, "the gracious
reception accorded to him by the Queen and the Prince Consort struck
a responsive chord in Sir Colin's heart. It completely dispelled
all angry feeling from his mind, and in a true spirit of loyalty he
expressed to her Majesty his readiness to return to the Crimea and
'to serve under a corporal if she wished it.'" At the Queen's request
he sat for his photograph, and by her Majesty's special desire, "the
gallant and amiable old soldier was asked to have it taken in the
uniform he wore at the Alma and at Balaclava."
On his way back to the Crimea he visited Paris where he was presented
to the Emperor and Empress, and where to his great joy he found
his genial Crimean friend General Vinoy. When he returned to the
Crimea he found that the division of the army into two army corps,
the Government's intention to carry out which scheme Lord Panmure's
letter had intimated to him and to take the command of one of which
it was that he had returned to the East, had not been effected,
and that Sir William Codrington did not intend to carry out the
arrangement until immediately before the army should take the field.
The Highland Division was placed under him with the understanding
that it should contribute the nucleus of an army corps to be formed
later if hostilities were to be prosecuted. He quartered himself at
Kamara with his division, resolved, as he wrote--"to accommodate
himself to all that might happen, and that nothing should disturb the
cordiality which ought to exist between himself and the commander
under whose orders he was to serve." He had not long to practise
patience. By the end of February, 1856, an armistice was arranged
and in the beginning of April peace was proclaimed. Before finally
leaving the Crimea Sir Colin assembled the regiments of the original
Highland Brigade that he might take farewell of the soldiers who had
served under him since the beginning of the war. He was not much of
an orator, but when he was moved he could be eloquent in language
which went right to the hearts of soldiers. His farewell was uttered
in the following words worthy alike of him and of them.
"Soldiers of the Forty-Second, Seventy-Ninth, and Ninety-Third!--old
Highland Brigade with whom I passed the early and perilous part of
this war, I have now to take leave of you. In a few hours I shall be
on board ship, never to see you again as a body. A long farewell!
I am now old and shall not be called to serve any more; and nothing
will remain to me but the memory of my campaigns, and the memory
too, of the enduring, hardy, generous soldiers with whom I have been
associated, and whose name and glory will long be kept alive in the
hearts of our countrymen. When you go home, as you gradually fulfil
your term of service, each to his family and his cottage, you will
tell the story of your immortal advance in that victorious _échelon_
up the heights of Alma, and may speak of the old brigadier who led
you, and who loved you so well. Your children and your children's
children will repeat the tale to other generations, when only a
few lines of history will remain to record all the enthusiasm and
discipline which have borne you so stoutly to the end of this war.
Our native land will never forget the name of the Highland Brigade,
and in some future war the nation will call for another one to equal
this, which it never can surpass. Though I shall be gone, the thought
of you will go with me wherever I may be, and cheer my old age with
a glorious recollection of dangers confronted and hardships endured.
The bagpipes will never sound near me without carrying me back to
those bright days when I was at your head and wore the bonnet which
you gained for me, and the honourable decorations on my breast,
many of which I owe to your conduct. Brave soldiers, kind comrades,
farewell!"
This address, delivered with much feeling, was received with manifest
emotion by the troops, who regarded as final the separation from
the chief they had learned to regard with affection. They did not
know that the farewell was to be but temporary, and that ere long
the three regiments would be under his command in another continent,
ready there to display the same soldierly virtues which had already
earned them the gratitude of their chief and countrymen.
In the summer of 1856 Sir Colin was appointed to the post of
Inspector-General of Infantry in succession to the Duke of Cambridge,
who became Commander-in-Chief of the army on the resignation of Lord
Hardinge. In December of that year he was sent to Berlin as the
representative of her Majesty, on the errand of presenting to his
Royal Highness the Prince of Prussia (afterwards the Emperor William
the First) the insignia of the military Grand Cross of the Order
of the Bath. During the first half of 1857 he was actively engaged
in the official duties of his important position. Beginning with
the depôts in the south of England, he then spent some time in his
inspections in Ireland, whence he visited Scotland and returned to
London in the beginning of June. How retentive was his memory for
faces, names, and events, is illustrated by the following incident
told on the authority of the gentleman to whom Sir Colin related it.
"While," said Campbell, "I was inspecting the depôt at Chichester,
I noticed that an old man, evidently an old soldier though in plain
clothes, was constantly on the ground and apparently watching my
movements. As I was leaving the barrack-yard at the end of the
inspection, he came towards me, drew himself up, made the military
salute, and with much respect said, 'Sir Colin, may I speak to you?
Look at me, sir! do you recollect me?' I looked at him and replied,
'Yes, I do.' 'What is my name?' he asked. I told him. 'Yes, sir;
and where did you last see me?' 'In the breach of San Sebastian,' I
replied, 'badly wounded by my side.' 'Right, sir!' answered the old
soldier. 'I can tell you something more,' I added--'you were No. --
in the front rank of my company.' 'Right, sir!' said the veteran. I
was putting my hand into my pocket to make the old man a present,
when he stepped forward, laid his hand on my wrist, and said:--'No,
sir; that is not what I want; but you will be going to Shorncliffe to
inspect the depôt there. I have a son in the Inniskillings quartered
at that station, and if you will call him out and tell him that you
knew his father, that is what I should wish.'"
The anecdote is a typical sample of the kindly and self-respecting
relations of the men of the old army with their officers, before
the era of short service set in. When Colin Campbell commanded the
Ninety-Eighth he knew the face, name, and character of every man in
the regiment. When he was Commander-in-Chief in India, which position
he was now immediately to attain, he could recognise by name all the
Crimean men of his favourite regiment the Ninety-Third Highlanders.